Subject Area: General Literature & Art

Martyn, John1998 0-7734-8331-4 568 pagesResende was a true humanist, religious but free of bigotry, devoted to the Classics, a creative writer and a fine scholar on a very wide range of topics, interested in every aspect of Renaissance life and culture. Besides over 12,000 verses of Latin poetry, in almost every Classical meter, Resende composed biographies of Prince Edward and Friar Pedro in mellifluous Portuguese, of St. Gil in perfect Latin, a definitive history of Évora, an account of the battle of Diu, and various archaeological works. Many letters have survived, and he also published his Latin and Portuguese public orations and theological works. This collection includes a short biography of Resende and a large collection of his Latin poems, from about 1515 until his death in 1573, with both the Latin and the English translation.
“John R. C. Martyn offers us an impressive work in this volume, ambitious both in scope and magnitude. . . . the poems are first edited in Latin (with an appended apparatus criticus); the English version follows with endnote apparatus which covers philological commentaries, explanations, etc. Each section of chapter 3 (autobiographical themes, Portuguese themes, Sebastian and Turkish themes, classical themes, nativity themes, religious themes, moralizing themes, and eclogues) is prefaced by an introductory essay which covers a metrical commentary on the poems, an analysis of the theme in relation to Resende’s poetry and to classical and Renaissance Latin poetry, and numerous bibliographical references. . . . Martyn’s work as an editor is of enormous merit, both in editing and commenting on Resende’s poems. . . Martyn’s paramount work is an incentive for future scholarly activity which will contribute to a better definition of the richness and variety of sixteenth-century Latin letters on the Iberian Peninsula.” – Neo-Latin News

Gathercole, Patricia1995 0-7734-8991-6 142 pagesMedieval manuscript painting offers a rich storehouse of material for literary scholars. This volume concentrates on domestic and wild mammals, rather than on the birds and monsters which have been treated elsewhere. Eighteen sections deal concisely with bears, camels, cats, dogs, elephants, etc., in what sorts of manuscripts they are found, and how they are presented. In addition, there are an introduction, conclusion, bibliography, and seventeen black and white illustrations from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and a color frontispiece.

de Baubeta, Patricia1992 0-7734-9607-6 356 pagesMuch medieval anticlerical satire stems from perceived discrepancies between proclaimed ideal and everyday reality, but it also owes much to a particularly successful literary tradition and cannot be accepted without question. After identifying the predominant literary characteristics of the medieval Portuguese clergy, this study uses other sources - sermons, exempla, visitation documents, doctrinal tracts, confession manuals and chronicles - to gauge clerical success or failure in fundamental areas of responsibility: attending and convoking councils and synods, carrying out visitations and preaching. It reveals the contrast between the literary stereotypes and documentary evidence.

DuBruck, Edelgard1993 0-7734-9328-X 186 pagesThis study examines two fields of research: German society of the fifteenth century, and its carnival comedies. This is a detailed treatment of the four classes (peasants, urban middle class, clergy, and nobility), including such aspects as health, the self and its historicity, and general rules of conduct. The German carnival plays are valuable literary texts allowing insight into fifteenth-century life. This book examines most of the 127 comedies in the Keller collection, listed in one of the indices, and provides translations of all quotations into modern English. It also contains a synoptic tabulation of the Nürnberg plays, valuable to both drama specialists and medievalists.

Walker Vadillo, Monica Ann2008 0-7734-5243-5 176 pagesThis study examines the visual representations of David watching Bathsheba bathing in French manuscript illuminations from the middle of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. The author applies contemporary theories of the gaze to this medieval subject to consider the various interpretations of Bathsheba’s agency in the event of David’s adultery. This book contains 14 color photographs.

Hufgard, M.2001 0-7734-7691-1 104 pagesMedieval art historians show varying degrees of interest in the aesthetics of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Some pronounce him ‘Philistine’ for his apparent lack of appreciation of art and beauty. Others see his monastic asceticism as a negative influence on 12th century culture. Some of these evaluations are made using the academic aesthetic notion that beauty is the objective of art. Others are made using certain controvertible modern theories, methods and criteria which are foreign to the medieval mind. This study examines Bernard’s wisdom regarding beauty and good ness: his idea that the goodness shining forth from a true being or creation that is perceived as beauty, as a thing of joy, as a true aesthetic response. This ‘true thing’ differs widely from a false thing, the intent of which is focused primarily on the glamorous, the spectacular, and/or self-interest, and which is poorly conceived and poorly made. The essays attempt to show the many occasions on which Bernard recognizes the presence of beauty shining forth for a variety of true beings. With illustrations.

Martyn, John1997 0-7734-8538-4 232 pagesThis work is the first to provide an English version of these two Portuguese texts. The biographies of Prince Edward (Duarte), born 1515, and of Friar Pedro Porteiro, were composed by one of Portugal's most illustrious scholars, André de Resende (1498-1573), tutor to the prince. Besides giving a full account of the life and education of the heir apparent, Resende describes the daily life, routines, superstitions, corrupt officials, special events, and choral interludes in Évora's Dominican monastery, where Resende had studied during his early years. Includes a brief biography of Resende in addition to the Portuguese and English texts on facing pages.

Marti, Kevin1991 0-7734-9764-1 220 pagesThis book argues that discourse on the body in Western European literature must begin by considering how the body served as the most basic medieval matrix for understanding reality; the modern `rediscovery' of the body and the modern focus on interdisciplinary perspectives constitute a return to medieval ways of knowing.

King, Sharon D.2003 0-7734-6722-X 304 pagesAnalyzing dramas that depict the fall of, or civic upheaval in, urban centers (both historical and legendary), this book establishes the author’s concept of “city tragedy” as a subgenre of tragedy in Renaissance theatrical practice. Using some two dozen texts (some by obscure authors, some by well-known playwrights such as Shakespeare and Calderón) from about 1560 to 1650, the book traces the different modes of creation of the city as principal character of the tragedy, then examines how an expanded notion of civic sin becomes its “fatal flaw.” This study is groundbreaking not only in its definition of the term “city tragedy” but in its examination of some of the sociological themes city tragedy presents – the city’s frequent depiction as a victimized woman, individual passion’s culpability in bringing death to the masses, the use of the notion of divine favor and divine wrath in the fate of a city for propagandistic ends. Finally, this study is timely in its discussion of recent dramatized portrayals of the events of 9/11, as it demonstrates that the patterns and conventions of city tragedies of 400 years ago are the very ones we use today.

Sutherland, Ross1995 0-7734-2906-9 128 pagesThis work represents a multi-disciplinary decoding of Cligès, a twelfth-century work of considerable significance for the fields of literature, history, psychology, religion, and comparative myth.

Cirigliano, Marc1997 0-7734-8694-1 352 pagesContemporary 'standard' editions of Dante's lyrics do not contain all the poems in the definitive Barbi edition. This translation follows Barbi's format and contains all 118 poems of the definitive text. It follows what is arguably the central issue of Dante's aesthetic: championing vernacular poetry. As Dante relied on his vernacular, these translations rely on the common language of today's speech, free verse, and open form, to give English readers an experience of Dante that is as contemporary to us as his poetic moment was to him. The original Italian appears on facing pages. As with all Mellen books, this book is available at a special text price when ordered for text use.

Fajardo-Acosta, Fidel1989 0-88946-110-4 224 pagesAn interpretation of Beowulf as a disconfirmation of the heroic type in which the author argues that the poem is the vehicle of a strong anti-militaristic, anti-heroic, pacifist wisdom that he claims is the essence of epic literature.

Stratton, R.E.1991 0-7734-9743-9 91 pagesThe purpose of the present edition of Cheuelere Assigne is to restore the text and free it from all but the most necessary modernizations. The work of earlier editors is taken into account. A full apparatus of textual and explanatory notes is provided as is a glossary of those words which might give trouble even to an experienced reader. The introduction seeks to provide background material for the study of the poem, and where appropriate, critical analysis and judgment.

Knittel, Frank1995 0-7734-8994-0 136 pagesThis edition marks the first time that Mankind has been deemed worthy of a full critical examination. It lays to rest the contention that the play is obscene and crude. The evidence presented in the critical introduction, the body of the play itself, and the opinions of current scholars demonstrate that Mankind, more than any other medieval drama, is a link to the Renaissance drama immediately following. With its intricate, well-developed metrical scheme and moral and philosophical themes, it represents an artistic achievement beyond that found in the typical drama of the Middle Ages. Its occasional humor as well as its high seriousness provide a happy combination of both wit and morality.

Gathercole, Patricia M.2008 0-7734-5014-9 140 pagesThis work presents an overall picture of French medieval clothing. The illustrations contained in the volume are invaluable in providing a striking view of this apparel, and all that it demonstrated and connoted by the wearer to its observer. This book contains one color photograph and twenty-five black and white photographs.

Arndt, Stephen1994 0-7734-9385-9 720 pagesThis is the only translation in the 400-year history of Dante translations into English that is perfectly rhymed. When read metrically, the translation falls into perfect iambic pentameter, and when read naturally, it flows in a meter very similar to Dante's original. This translation avoids the archaisms and awkward syntax of other rhymed translations and is more literally accurate.

Nissen, Christopher1993 0-7734-9835-4 156 pagesThis study deals with the depiction of ethically correct punishment in four late medieval Italian novella collections: Boccaccio's Decameron, Fiorentino's Pecorone, Sacchetti's Trecentonovelle, and Sercambi's Novelliere. It analyzes the function of ethics in dozens of short tales which can be profitably studied not only by scholars of Italian and other literatures, but also by students of medieval and Renaissance history, sociology, and philosophy.

Giraldi, G. B.2003 0-7734-6833-1 284 pagesAmong Giraldi’s later plays not published since the 16th century is Eufimia, which the playwright adapted for the stage from one of his own short stories, in a new style. It combines lavish stage spectacle with a plot incorporating romantic episodes based on the poems of chivalry and resembling some of the stock ingredients of the modern Western: flight, pursuit, rescue, combat and duel. The volumes includes explanatory notes on the text and a glossary of archaic words and word-forms. The first part of the Introduction places Giraldi’s tragedy in the context of the dispute with his literary rival, Giambattista Pigna, correcting in the process some persistent misunderstandings about the chronology of events. The second part discusses the innovative aspects of the tragedy and its place in the evolution of Giraldi’s compositions for the stage

Koss, Ronald1990 0-88946-692-0 228 pagesExamines chronologically nine major texts of the Guillaume cycle, the kinship relationships of the characters (men, women, brothers, and siblings), and the nature, consequences, motives, and functions of these relationships. Demonstrates that the Cycle of Guillaume is a true cycle and details how the bonds of kinship provide the structural framework of the cycle.

Stiller, Nikki1990 0-88946-397-2 194 pagesTraces this controversial figure characterized by sexual allure and treachery from its Homeric beginnings in the minor characters of Chryseis and Briseis through its period of greatest popularity, the sixth through sixteenth centuries, to its reappearance in modern form today.

Klein, Michael1992 0-7734-9504-5 416 pagesThis study charts and analyzes the stylistic, ideological, and human signifiers of a general crisis of rhetoric and discourse: shifting genres and resolutions; parataxis; contradiction, recycling, repetition. The style, structure and dialogic pattern of meanings of William Langland's Piers Plowman are the starting points of an inquiry into the contradictions of cultures and societies in transition. Crises of feudal and late capitalist cultures in transition are analyzed in visual art, film, and music as well as literature. Texts studies include the work of Eliot, Pound, Lawrence, Dos Passos, Glass, Reich, and Dylan, as well as the film "Beyond Thunderdome."

Osborn, Peggy1992 0-7734-9445-6 260 pagesThis study comprises a critical edition of the complete text of Giraldi's Altile. (The play has been published only once before the present edition, in 1583, ten years after the author's death.) This edition also contains its narrative source, Giraldi's novella (Hecatommithi, II,3). Shows how Giraldi telescoped his unwieldy novella into the formal neo-classical structure of Renaissance tragedy, reinterpreting or even ignoring the precepts of Aristotle when they conflicted with his experience as a practical dramatist writing for the duke and court of Ferrara. He greatly developed the characters of his leading personages, adding an important new character-type to the cast: the first scheming and treacherous subordinate of modern tragedy. The study stresses the importance of the elements of suspense, pathos and maraviglia, and the pains Giraldi took to provide his audience with a lavish, well-staged spectacle. It also emphasizes the fact that the play was intended to convey a series of clearly-defined moral messages.

Migiel, Marilyn1993 0-7734-9392-1 204 pagesUsing feminist, psychoanalytic, and deconstructionist approaches to Torquato Tasso's 1581 Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), this book argues that Tasso explored alternate modes of writing and reading by reflecting on the genealogical tales of his non-Christian women characters, Clorinda, Erminia, and Armida. They permit Tasso to explore what it might mean to ask an alternate series of questions about one's relation to the father. By examining the interpretive and ethical questions that rise from the problematic genealogies of Tasso's orphan daughters, we arrive at a better understanding of the relation between the poem's dominant ideology, on one hand, and the stories that it seeks to suspend and displace on the other.

Hodgart, A.1997 0-7734-8661-5 220 pagesThis comparative study of Giordano Bruno's Candelaio examines a large number of theatrical authors, from the classical tradition as well as from Italian vernacular and dialect. It takes into account Bruno's recognized sources as well as unknown authors, philosophers as well as poets, playwrights as well as 'poligrafi della penna'. The study concludes that it is the polemic attack on pedantry - in the special sense attributed to it by Bruno - which constitutes the central impulse of Candelaio: a polemic against intellectual obscurantism and degenerated morals. This meaning explains and justifies, emblematically, the title itself: Candelaio is the bearer of the light of truth. Thus, by its very name, the play declares its function, to clarify and enlighten - and claims the ethical significance, as a human and social document, which makes it worth reading.

Hardman, Phillipa; Le Saux, Françoise; Noble, Peter S.; Thomas, Neil2003 0-7734-6835-8 236 pagesThese essays examine the links among the four main areas where the Tristan legend flourished. It examines how the legend adapted to each new period and assimilated the new ideas and fashions of the societies for which the authors were writing, over a period of seven centuries.

van Deusen, Nancy1989 0-88946-429-4 456 pagesEssays dealing with music as it was understood, visualized, articulated, and interpreted in the Middle Ages. Argues that medieval discussions of music depended on a structural foundation which writers were certain that their readers possessed, and this influenced the subject matter of music.

Quinn, Shelley1992 0-7734-9738-2 224 pagesA new procedure for literary analysis of surrealist imagery, using various procedures: a summary of recent developments in hemispheric studies, discussion of the language and communicative properties of the two hemispheres of the brain, analysis of language modes and types of image - memory, dream, imagination, etc. - and examination of poems and poets that have been called surrealist.

Hendrix, Scott E.2010 0-7734-3635-9 340 pagesThis study analyzes the readership of a work commonly known as a Speculum astronomiae from the time of its production in the mid-thirteenth century to the point when it lapsed from learned discourse to in the late fifteenth century.

Staples, Max1995 0-7734-9400-6 304 pagesThis work studies the roles of ideology in the production of literature by linguistic and structural analyses of Boccaccio's Decameron. The repeated discursive structure of each novella is analysed to show Boccaccio's understanding of causality. Narrative outcomes are surveyed to show the treatment of characters according to gender, social class, and place of origin. Historical references are compared to their sources to show Boccaccio's political and narrative concerns. This comprehensive analysis produces a new explanation of Boccaccio's beliefs. The final chapters show that when combined with Boccaccio's aesthetic program and applied to his sources, these ideological beliefs generate the text.

Marechal, Chantal1992 0-7734-9586-X 308 pagesThese essays treat a wide variety of aspects of Marie's production; the poet's voice, the moods of her original audience, the beauty and significance of the works' intellectual or emotional appeal, their sexual and textual politics.

Goebel, Ulrich1994 0-7734-9071-X 364 pagesThese sixteen essays deal with many aspects of medieval literature: problems of Old Saxon, Old High German, Old English words, and Old Norse literature; devotional biography, hagiography, and autobiography; the reinterpretation of specific words from the courtly era; a manuscript in which the Hebrew alphabet is used to render a collection of randomly chosen Christian prayers; medieval descriptions of India; and a demonstration of how to compile an onomasiological index for a language period such as Early New High German.

Gathercole, Patricia1997 0-7734-8539-2 164 pagesThis volume shows in more detail than ever before the fascinating portrayals of the landscape of nature on French codices from the Middle Ages. The illuminations, the text, and the folio borders often constitute a work of high quality. From an early stylized portrayal of natural phenomena, this work moves on to a more realistic portrayal as reality rather than tradition and authority prevail, showing the gradual development of early landscape painting. As well as benefiting the medieval scholar, this volume will also delight those who love the outdoors, and may serve in addition as a guide for the visitor to museums and galleries. It will be of interest to historians for its representation of the background for historical events, and to the literary scholar. It discusses subjects such as the painting of trees, mountains, flowers, seas, etc. The Arthurian manuscripts disclose a distinct beauty of scenery in their pictorial representations. Calendars associated with prayer books are especially valuable. With many photographs.

Tripp, Raymond1992 0-7734-9162-7 316 pagesThis lively collection of essays aims at freeing the poem from the burden of its critical past - and future. It begins with a balanced yet unsparing review of the uses and abuses of contemporary criticism, and continues with new answers for particular questions familiar to students of the poem: the Christian/Pagan dilemma, the connection with the Grettis Saga, the value of treasure, the role of drinking, the identity of the messenger, the poet on poetry, the poet's rhetoric, the events in Heorot, the notorious gifstol crux, the importance of wordplay, and the poet's understanding of fate. Other essays also engage a wide range of general topics: the poet's lively sense of humor, use of the Liber Monstrorum, the poet's scatology and canonical parody, sartorial anticipation of Carlyle, and more.

Utz, Richard1995 0-7734-8882-0 264 pagesThis is the first volume to offer a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and practical possibilities of an interdisciplinary approach to nominalism in medieval literature. The essays avoid theoretical reductivism and provide an outstanding critical perspective. In each essay, an expert scholar in the field investigates one of the existing theoretical approaches (e.g., nominalism as a direct 'source' for late medieval writers in the philological sense; nominalism as a philosophical superstratum; nominalism as part of a typical late-medieval mentality; nominalism as an intertext; medieval nominalist sign theory in comparison with twentieth-century sign theory, etc.) and then apply the chosen approach to a literary case study. It also contains the most inclusive bibliography on nominalism and late medieval literature. This volume will be the first and foremost source to be consulted for any scholar in the field.

Pepin, Ronald1989 0-88946-316-6 150 pagesRecent anthologies give the impression that formal satire faded with Juvenal or Apuleius and did not reappear until Erasmus. This neglect of the entire medieval period omits the most prolific era for Latin verse satire in literary history, an oversight this study rectifies.

Jensen, Brian Møller2006 0-7734-5854-9 324 pagesThis book is a very valuable collection of fifteen thorough and well-documented studies on liturgical texts in medieval Italian manuscripts, including the English versions of five published in Italian as well as five new unpublished studies. Hagiography is the central theme in these studies.

Means, Laurel1993 0-7734-9299-2 372 pagesPresents a critical edition of eighteen Middle English astrological texts in verse and prose, based upon lunar astrology and its prognostics for all areas of life -- personality, physical appearance, profession, health, medicine, sexuality, marriage, agriculture, commerce, and travel. None of these works has received a full, critical edition; few have been studied, several important and extensive texts in multiple redactions have never before been noted, including The Moon of Ptolemy and The Sothfast Conyng of Astrology. An extensive introduction explains the common astrological conditions upon which they are based. Because the texts constitute a large number of individual manuscripts, they can be studied as an important body of popular literature which circulated widely, whether as deluxe illuminated documents or the poorest of household documents. The texts raise several topics which need to be better understood within the context of late medieval thought, notably determinism, physiognomy, and medicine.

MacCornack, Katharine1996 0-7734-8815-4 184 pagesThis study illustrates the usefulness of using contemporary philosophies of literary criticism to elucidate old texts. Mental Representation theory propounded by Umberto Eco, Gilles Fauconnier, and other contemporary scholars lends itself well to the interpretation of dream allegory. This study provides a breakdown of the mental components of the dream text and shows how they fit together to form a cohesive whole. Providing a new way to read these texts, The Romance of the Rose, The Dream of Hell, The Tournament of the Antichrist, and others, Mental Representation theory interprets interpretation in a new, clearer, more complete fashion by looking at the dream, the cosmic nature of allegory, and its linguistic and mental structures.

Bent, George R.2006 0-7734-5968-5 636 pagesLocked inside the walls of a severely cloistered monastery, monks from the Camaldolese house of Santa Maria degli Angeli had access to some of the most innovative paintings produced in Florence between 1350 and 1425. Leading painters of the day, like Nardo di Cione and Lorenzo Monaco, filled manuscripts and decorated altars with richly ornamented pictures that related directly to liturgical passages recited – and theological positions embraced – by members of the institution. In a city marked by wealthy and sophisticated ecclesiastical communities, the one at Santa Maria degli Angeli had few peers.

Dependent on the benefices of a powerful network of patronage, the monks in Santa Mara degli Angeli counted among their staunchest allies families associated with the most important political alliances in Florence, and by 1378 the monastery was considered by many to be closely linked to the city’s most potent families. Monks executed a variety of tasks and obligations which took place throughout the year. Among these was a lengthy and solemn procession, held on specific feast days, that took the community to every altar and altarpiece in the monastic complex. The route they took and the images they saw caused each participant to see his collection of images in sequence, and thus encouraged him to consider the altarpieces in his environment both individually and collectively. The culmination of this procession came to be the extraordinary high altarpiece produced by Lorenzo Monaco in 1413, the Coronation of the Virgin, which summarized both the entire program of monastic imagery in Santa Maria degli Angeli and the importance of individual patronage in Europe’s most progressive and potent city-state. This work examines and explains the appearance, function, and uses of painting in one of the day’s most important cultural centers.

Because of the size of the book and the large number of photographs, this book is priced at $399.95.

Cocozzella, Peter1991 0-88946-388-3 308 pagesA critical 2-volume edition of the Poemas menores (vol. 1) and Poemas mayores (vol. 2) of Francesc Moner (1463-1492), a hitherto-little-known author of late-medieval Spain who wrote in Castilian and in Catalan. Cocozzella, who also edited Moner's Obres catalanes, offers in his commentary on the Obras castellanas a reassessment of peninsular Spanish literature of the late Middle Ages. In Spanish.

Cocozzella, Peter1991 0-88946-389-1 244 pagesA critical 2-volume edition of the Poemas menores (vol. 1) and Poemas mayores (vol. 2) of Francesc Moner (1463-1492), a hitherto-little-known author of late-medieval Spain who wrote in Castilian and in Catalan. Cocozzella, who also edited Moner's Obres catalanes, offers in his commentary on the Obras castellanas a reassessment of peninsular Spanish literature of the late Middle Ages. In Spanish.

McCormick, Thomas1995 0-7734-2918-2 264 pagesLes Fais des Rommains is an early fifteenth century copy of an anonymous prose translation of Roman history with Julius Caesar as the central figure. It was an ambitious attempt to glean from the best Roman historians a history of Roman civilization with intentional didactic emendations for a medieval audience. Fifty-nine manuscripts of the translation are accounted for, the oldest one written in the thirteenth century. Hence, changes in syntax and style and other miscellaneous variations between this fifteenth century version and previously edited thirteenth-century renditions can be studied, where a scribe is faithful to his text, but echoes the thoughts and language of his own time.

Mills, Mary1996 0-7734-8855-3 116 pagesWithin his writings, Hartmann von Aue addresses a problem characteristic of his period, got und der werlt gevallen, by fusing the quest for secular happiness as it is presented in the heroic literatures of ancient and medieval times with the search for spiritual happiness as it is depicted by St. Augustine in his Civitas Dei. In the discussion of the quest for saelde within Hartmann's works, this study establishes the pilgrimage motif as his main tectonic principle and most significant action motif. The examination of Hartmann's tectonic principle also documents the ideologized transformation of the pilgrimage motif as a progression from the rather stark dualism of his Kreuzzugslieder to the gradualism in Gregorius and Der arme Heinrich and marks a peak of gothic style and ideology in the medieval epic tradition.

Crafton, John Micheal2008 0-7734-5318-0 212 pagesThis work provides a critical review of the scholarship history of the Bayeux Tapestry before examining the Tapestry through a variety of interpretive lenses to elucidate its meaning and purpose. By examining the stylistic and story-telling qualities of the Tapestry, themes of conquest and Norman imperial ambitions are elucidated.

Kearney, Milo1991 0-7734-9682-3 385 pagesThe pig has probably evoked more unexplained extremes of human emotions than any other animal. What are the possible origins of the symbolism attached to this animal? Has it ever been viewed differently? In a light tone, with alliteration and bantering humor, many original theories are presented to show how our western heritage subconscious associations toward the pig have developed.

Mermier, Guy1993 0-7734-9225-9 120 pagesThis anonymous fifteenth-century romance offers readers an unusual and curious window on the realities and mentalities of the late French Middle Ages. The crafty and often humorous antics of the young king of France disguised as a rich bourgeois in order to steal the old king of England's Spanish fiancée are very much in tune with the cynical and satirical stories widely told at that time. The book reveals signs of emerging national patriotism in France after the Hundred Year War against the English, and is also an emblem celebrating the ideal prince.

Miller, Edward1996 0-7734-8795-6 376 pagesThis work traces the literary tradition of metaphysical 'light' from archaic times, and discusses the medieval ideas on sense perceptions and contrasts the differences between Aristotelian and Platonist ideas about perception. There is a cautionary exposition of the 'Three Dantes' found in the poem: the historical Dante Alighieri, the Dante-poeta, and Dante-personaggio. Indentification is made of the binary rather than the usually accepted triadic structure of Dante's poem: the dichotomies such as ignorance/knowledge, unity/variety, contrapasso, frequeny of turning, and the assistance which the binary structure gives to the subject of Freewill. Christian applications of Freewill and Divine Will in the poem are reflected against the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas. After recognizing the dark tone of the Inferno and the increased illumination of the Purgatorio, the Divine Light of the Paradiso is related to Patristic thought, particularly from the Cappadocian Fathers. Medieval beliefs on illumination and imagination are examined, particularly from the thought of Robert Grosseteste and on to Ficino. Conclusions drawn range from ancient through to Dante's medieval masterpiece and look ahead to later literary uses of metaphysical light linked with insight, such as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, and Milton's Paradise Lost.

Dietl, Cora and Claudia Lauer2009 0-7734-3892-0 184 pagesThe city as both a fictive room of action or a fictionalized social group within aristocratic narrative and a “real” room of production and reception of originally aristocratic fictional literature is a phenomenon which has so far been neglected by scholarly research on Arthurian literature. The present book, focuses upon cities in medieval history, culture and literature by Arthurian scholars from different continents and disciplines.

Harwood-Gordon, Sharon1991 0-7734-9650-5 172 pagesDante interprets for the modern world the Aristotelian via media between Platonism and pre-Socratic sensism that teaches the interdependency of the body and soul in the recognition and interpretation of physical, intellectual, and moral truth. Philosophical and religious dogma, secular and sacred verities must be perceived through the physical senses before they can be comprehended by the rational mind. This is an analysis of Dante's presentation of the poet's experiences during the extraordinary journey that is narrated in the Divina Commedia.

Classen, Albrecht1995 0-7734-9134-1 312 pagesThis study explains how the Volksbuch developed from the medieval courtly romance under the influence of complex sociological, economic, technological, and cultural factors during the 15th century and became an art form in its own right. The new genre was characterized by a wide range of styles, from the earthy plot and language of Till Eulenspiegel to the formal style and moralistic didacticism of the Magelone. The study goes on to examine the history of the genre's critical evaluation from the Romantic period to the present, providing a close-up survey of the history of German literary scholarship. It also discusses four major representatives of the genre: Thüring von Ringoltingen's Melusine, the anonymous Fortunatus, Till Eulenspiegel, and Historia von D. Johann Fausten. This book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of German, but also to those interested in the social, historical, and mental transition of Germany from the late Middle Ages to the modern age.

Levine, Robert1990 0-88946-623-8 148 pagesVernacular prose, "literature" or "pseudo-history" composed in the early 1260s by a man known only as the Minstrel of Rheims, which is devoted to various historical and fictional events and characters.

Morrison, Mary1997 0-7734-8636-4 412 pagesThis study examines the creative processes by which Giraldi transforms his narrative source, usually a novella from his own Hecatommithi, into a five act drama, conforming, more or less, to the conventions of 'regular' classical tragedy. Giraldi, devising these entertainments for the court of his patron, Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, begins each play by designing an appropriate stage set of the Serlian type (the perspective of a city), to be built and painted by professional artists under his direction; he than adds to the plot new personages, drawn from court life or reflecting topical problems, and places these in situations of tension, with moments of surprise and occasional outbursts of violence. This study demonstrates these points by giving a summary of the relevant novella, followed by a scene by scene synopsis of the play. The detailed synopses will allow all students of drama to appreciate the nature of Giraldi's court entertainments by drawing attention to the non-literary aspects of his dramaturgy, to décor, movement and spectacle. With illustrations.

Horatia, Gillian1997 0-7734-8659-3 272 pagesThese are the first English translations of two of the most significant tragedies of the Italian Renaissance. Trissino's Sophonisba, written in 1515, is considered the first "regular" tragedy written in Italian and the one which paved the way for the other Italian and European tragedies of the century. Aretino's Horatia, published in Venice in 1546, has been hailed not only as one of the most important works of Aretino's literary production, but also as one of the best tragic compositions of sixteenth-century Europe.

Shiff, Jonathan1994 0-7734-9424-3 200 pagesThis study examines for the first time the thirty-eight anonymous plays performed at the state banquets that Doge Marino Grimani was required by law to offer four times a year for the leading senators and magistrates of the Venetian Republic. Explores the patronage, audience, site, performers, and music of the first performances, and places their ideological content in the context of the Venice of 1600. It finds that their most unusual feature is a ludic use of rhetoric which betrays the influence of the Sienese veglia games. These games, which called for wit, verbal skill, and variety of response, had recently penetrated Venice by means of Girolamo Bargagli's Dialogo de' Giuochi. They inspired the creation of a new theatrical form. A stylistic analysis of the Grimani plays suggests that all but one are the work of a single author, most likely Enea Piccolomini, a figure hitherto unknown to scholarship, and to whom one of the plays has traditionally been attributed.

Davis, Graeme1997 0-7734-8649-6 312 pagesOne of the most interesting issues in Old English syntax is word-order or element-order. This volume provides a descriptive study of word-order (or element-order) within specified clause types in a corpus drawn from Ælfric's Catholic Homilies and Supplementary Homilies. A sample of 11,543 clauses has been analyzed, divided into fourteen clause categories. A survey of the element-order within each category is presented, with copious examples and full statistics. Attention is paid both to the order of single elements in relation to the verb phrase, and to patterns of element-order within clauses. An extensive description of the position of the adverbial element is included. The rhythmic and non-rhythmic prose of Ælfric is contrasted, showing that although there is a broad similarity between the two styles, significant differences do nonetheless exist. The results show both that there are marked tendencies within element-order which approach the status of rules, and also that there is a substantial measure of stylistic freedom.

Dashwood, J.R.1991 0-7734-9717-X 201 pagesThese essays cover much of the span of Italian drama, from its origins, via the Renaissance and the 19th century, to Pirandello and versions for radio and theatre of Svevo's best-known novel. Contributors raise interesting questions concerning the nature of drama and how and where it can be identified.